


The Empress

by Lucius Parhelion (Parhelion)



Category: Original Work
Genre: 1920s, Boss/Employee Relationship, Competency, F/F, Femslash, Gay Manhattan, Historical, Jazz Age, POV Female Character, POV First Person, Wall Street
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-04-30
Updated: 2009-04-30
Packaged: 2017-12-25 05:42:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/949302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Parhelion/pseuds/Lucius%20Parhelion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Manhattan dailies have dubbed Helen Williams "the Empress of Wall Street." But Catherine Hughes can't choose between the Countess of Monte Cristo or Robin Hood the Robber Baroness as a better nickname for her boss. Either way, it's sure getting hard for Cat to keep her mind on business.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Empress

I -- Winter

When your chosen role in life is the Countess of Monte Cristo, the last thing you want to do is run low on the vengefulness. Too bad that Mrs. Williams seemed to be motoring into 1929 with the needle falling toward empty.

I discovered her difficulty one morning in February, thanks to reading the Times during breakfast in her penthouse suite. Lowering the paper, I said, "Oh, gee. I see here that Mr. Samuel A. Moorehead has returned from his tour of European beaches just in time to be honored as Man of the Year by the Loyal Fraternal Order of Polecats. Or maybe Porcupines. Some outfit like that, anyway."

"Hmm," was her response. She had propped her chin on her interlaced hands. The look in her gray eyes was wistful as she gazed past my ear and out the window. Uh-oh: the so-called Empress of Wall Street looking wistful after hearing Moorehead's name was like an alley cat reaching for a ball of yarn after a sewer rat had sauntered by.

I was not kidding when I asked her, "Are you okay? I can telephone the hotel doctor if you are running a fever."

Her gaze shifted to me but stayed wistful. She moved her fingers to tuck back some chestnut hair. "No, I'm fine."

"That is good, because you have a crowded schedule today. Mr. Harper is coming up from Washington, and you promised to meet the new vice president from the bank. Also, you wanted to dump those radio shares."

"Ah, radio. Yes, I suppose. They are badly overvalued, after all." Her gaze left mine and headed toward the window again.

I got up. I went to look through the window in question. Down below us, there was dirty, slushy snow, lots of pedestrians, and taxicabs. As far as up above us went, I saw concrete parapets, rooftop water tanks, and huddled pigeons. It was a normal view for Manhattan in late winter. Returning to the table, I said, "I expected a zeppelin, at least."

"What?"

"Given the moony stare? I was expecting to see a zeppelin floating by. If said moony stare was mine, I would anticipate seeing a dozen red roses, a new tennis racket, or maybe a cute and happy baby in the room. But you are looking out the window, and you prefer viewing something in which you can invest."

"German Airship Transport Co. discourages investment from abroad. Now, an airplane might have been interesting, if not for my doubts about stocks including aviation shares." She took a sip from her coffee cup and frowned. Coffee gets chilly about being ignored.

"Fresh cup?"

"No. Catherine, I apologize if I've been distracted this morning."

"I just got worried when I said 'Moorehead' and you didn't snarl."

At least this time, she looked kind of spiteful upon hearing the sound of his name. "I'm sure he will soon be up to something. We'll need to watch for what he'll try next." 

That reaction was peachy, but instead of proceeding to plot, she dunked toast into her soft-boiled egg. The toast crunched as she amputated bits with those sharp, white teeth of hers. Then she said, "Town is so tiresome in winter. I miss the good weather, the flowers, and the songbirds."

I put the Times back down on the rosewood tabletop and stared at her.

If you do not follow business news, her behavior might have seemed fine for a classy, not to mention wealthy, lady who lives in New York City, especially if you skipped the money talk. However, I had worked for Mrs. Mabel Helen Waldrope Williams long enough to know all of her behavior that morning had been strange except for the money talk.

Maybe her full name helped you spot the problem? Yes, Mrs. Williams' mother was Maude Waldrope, the Wicked Witch of Wealth, the stingiest female ever to build up five million dollars into a hundred million dollars. I guess she was the only female ever to build up five million dollars into a hundred million dollars, especially while living in a Hell's Kitchen boardinghouse to try and duck the taxman.

As for Mrs. Williams, she grew up going to P.S. 127 alongside riff-raff like me. If she had been ten years younger, we could have played hopscotch together, except I was busy playing stoopball across town at the time. Mrs. Williams also served as her mother's unpaid bookkeeper and clerk until Mr. Williams -- of the railroad Williamses, of course -- won her hand at seventeen. The Wall Street gossip says he bought her and her expectations from Maude for a tasty two million berries, but I have never had the nerve to confirm that.

However she got hitched, Mrs. Williams was happy enough with both Mr. Williams and owning more than one dress at a time to take it hard when her sweet hubby died the very next year of an apoplexy during the 1907 Panic, a fit brought on by the fiscal maneuvering of Samuel Moorehead and his chums. After Maude exited in 1912, leaving her daughter another big slice of berry pie, Mrs. Williams went after those Knickerbocker boys with a vengeance.

She polished off the chief crony, Mott, all by herself, long before I quit the stage and came to work for her in '24. I happen to know she had a lot to do with the fates of Kirkson and Smith as well. Moorehead was the only one still standing by 1929, and he was the toughest number in the quartet.

By the twenties, Samuel A. Moorehead was spoken of in the same breath as John D. Rockefeller and Henry Ford. Not that this stopped Mrs. Williams. It only made her careful. Mostly, she smiled and smiled while being Moorehead's villain. But today the vengeful Empress seemed to be yearning for sunshine and buttercups.

We did not have time for yearning; after all, she was the one who had asked me over to make with the secretarial services at breakfast before today's first meeting. Instead I could now choose between reading about Moorehead and watching her brood, and enough was enough of all that. "I am afraid we are expected to receive the latest envoy from First Farmer's and Apothecary's at ten this morning."

"Oh? Oh. Then I'll meet you in the lobby in--" her gaze went to the genuine antique bracket clock sitting on the fake marble hotel mantelpiece "--twenty minutes." Getting up, she pulled her blue silk dressing gown a little tighter around her lush figure and wafted back toward her bedroom. Wafted: hooray.

Given her deadline, I was glad that I, at least, was already dressed. Part of my job for the firm is to look as alluring as a confidential secretary can, which is no twenty-minute chore, let me tell you. After washing up, I collected and checked the file cases with the records for today's meetings, fixed my makeup in the mirror next to the coat rack, and pulled on my winter coat and cloche hat. Then I headed down to the lobby.

The elevator attendant said, "Good morning, Miss Hughes," and smiled without bothering to touch the brim of his fancy uniform cap.

"Good morning, Bill. How are you?'

"Just fine. My boy got his winter grades at Howard, and he's doing fine, too."

"I am happy to hear that. Mrs. Williams will be glad." She was helping finance Junior's education. If you are at war with one of the big cheeses of banking, you need allies, especially nearby. Maybe Bill's good news would help cure the wafting mood.

Too bad that, before Bill could describe Junior's latest assault on the fortress of dentistry in any detail, he had to stop for some hotel guests on the fourteenth floor. After the intrusion, the car was quiet until the lobby. I spent the time ignoring one fellow with a roving gaze and the hopeful air of a man who wants an introduction, nothing new. He acted like he meant to chase me down until he saw I was meeting another man in the lobby, which was enough to make him change course toward the front desk.

"You better have brought your overcoat," I told Nathan Goldman, Mrs. William's company lawyer and trouble-shooter, as I checked my wristwatch. "She is in another mood, like the one last week but worse, so no taxi for us. Three minutes from now, we will all be wafting through the wintry and overcast day together. At least I am wearing my walking shoes."

He had settled his big frame back into the winged armchair after rising to greet me. The basset-hound-in-mourning face grew even sadder. "Swell."

"Ain't it just? Please tell me you have those figures on oil production with you, so I can try distracting her with details when we get to the office. Otherwise, she may descend to buying slim volumes of melancholy poetry, and I am adverse to verse."

"No need to worry. I have your information right here, doll." From him, I take that form of address, since he is razzing me when he uses it rather than expecting to be taken seriously. Also, he was holding out another file to add to my collection.

I took it, leafed through it quickly, and slid it into the leather case that held urgent-but-not-red-hot files. Nathan got back up and donned his overcoat and hat. Then we both went to watch the elevators. Sure enough, right on time, the elevator arrived from her penthouse suite. If Mrs. Williams had been far enough gone to be late, I would have summoned the hotel sawbones whether or not she wanted the fellow.

Bill slid open the elevator grating. Mrs. Williams was the only passenger in the car; Bill would not stop for random, rich out-of-towners with her aboard, her owning the chunk of this hotel that she did. Her "thank you" to him sounded like usual, but her eyes, when she spotted Nathan and I, were wistful again, which was no good at all.

At least her clothes were still okay, being her standard blouse, skirt, and suit jacket ten years out of fashion, if ones well-cut from classy fabric. The outfit was something a senior librarian with a trust fund might wear, but the straighter lines of current style would not have flattered Mrs. Williams. She had the limbs you needed for this decade's fashion but not the build. In fact, her figure would have qualified her to earn a living in burlesque if her Ma had ever gone busted.

Mrs. Williams did not dress like she did to hide her curves. Years back, she had told me that she preferred powerful men not confuse her with their society wives because of some fancy get-up, thus ceasing to pay attention when she talked money. Sometimes her librarian costume did remind them to listen, at least with the smart fellows. But no outfit would help at meetings if she kept looking like Lillian Gish daydreaming in the mining camp before the Boy comes along to court her.

We exited the hotel with the doorman holding the door wide while standing at attention. As usual, Mrs. Williams led the way down the sidewalk, with Nathan and me falling into step right behind her in the wedge formation that would keep the worst of the lagging pedestrians out of our path. Also as usual, she ankled along briskly, but she still had that pensive expression on her face. Instead of shooting the usual questions over her shoulder at Nathan as to how her schemes were ripening or what the other privateers of Wall Street were doing, she studied the passers-by as if they had found the secret to successful financial leverage and were not sharing nicely. 

When we neared our intersection on Broadway, the traffic officer in his tower spotted Mrs. Williams and swung over the signals so we could cross without delay. Her smile up at him was bittersweet as she briefly raised a gloved hand. He beamed down at us, and you could see his chest puff out beneath the uniform tunic even at a distance.

Nathan glanced over at me, eyebrows raised. I shrugged. He snorted, and I rolled my eyes at him. If he had any clever notions about what was wrong with the boss and how to fix it, I would be happy to hear them. Until then, he could join in the suffering.

Wouldn't you know it, his expression went moody to match hers. As we continued to walk, Nathan continued to suffer. Good thing the St. James Hotel was only four blocks from the First Farmer's and Apothecary's Building, given all this atmosphere floating around me. I felt like I was trapped in the pedestrian's Strindberg.

Mrs. Williams had inherited her relationship with First Farmer's and Apothecary's. Maude Waldrope used to sit with her trunks of records in their old vaults every day like some sort of black bombazined spider, doing her business on their premises to save the cost of rent. When Mrs. Williams took over her mother's estate, the bank was really eager to offer her separate office space at a nominal fee. She may not be the miser her mother was, but she is also too smart with the moolah to pass up a sweetheart deal. Williams Investments has its quarters on the fortieth floor of the new FF&A skyscraper.

After a fast ride up in an automated elevator, we went into Reception. The corridor entrance was not labeled; Mrs. Williams often said that if we do not have reason for someone to visit, he has no reason to know who we are, which is the kind of attitude she displays during business hours on most days. Not today.

When we entered, Mrs. Kelly looked up and nodded at Mrs. Williams' "Good morning," before going back to her typing. That was fine. Nathan, done with escort duty, went into the meeting room instead of his own office, probably to scowl at the stock ticker there instead of Mrs. Williams. That was not fine.

Once I had hung up my coat and changed my shoes, I dodged other staff to follow Mrs. Williams through the anteroom filled with file cabinets and into her unmarked corner office. There, I ignored the mail bundled on the lacquered tray by the door, sat down in the visitor's arm chair, laced my fingers around a silk stocking clad knee, and waited.

Mrs. Williams settled into her rosewood office chair to study the single gardenia in the cinnabar vase decorating her desktop. I waited some more. She switched to examining a Chinese painting of mountains on the wall and then tried out the view through a different set of windows than the ones at her penthouse suite. After a while, she looked at me. I looked back.

"I'm still distracted?" she asked at last.

"Uh-huh."

"I see." There was a pause. "I don't want to talk about this."

"Okay. Just so you know, Mr. Goldman is steaming, although he will not tell you that. He must have had a red-hot briefing ready for the walk this morning."

"Oh, dear." When Mrs. Williams says those words, they come out sounding like cussing. "Well, then. I must try harder to confine my reflections to my own time." She glanced at the fusee railroad clock on the wall, the local one and not any of the smaller ones hanging beneath it that showed the hour in London or such places. "At least there's enough time before my first meeting to salvage the situation. Please go and ask Mr. Goldman to come in here. I imagine he has something interesting to say about those Texan wells."

That was more like it. I got up and went to fetch Nathan. He did have the cackle on the fields in East Texas, and he seemed to feel better after unpacking his load and leaving her office with decisions to enforce. I was glad someone was happy because Mrs. Williams' first official meeting of the day would likely be a waste of time.

I do not know why First Farmer's and Apothecary's always sent up the same sorts of fellows to represent their interests. You would think they would learn better, but the urge to push forward some board member's fraternity brother's bridge partner's son-in-law kept winning out over experience. The new character that arrived at ten was a classic example.

He had been talking for a while before he got to his point. "--which is why you should consider diversifying those holdings into stocks. Now is the time. The market is booming."

"Do you think so? Booms are so often followed by busts."

"Nonsense." If he had snapped out that word, he might have stood a chance with her. At least, he might have stood a chance with her if he followed up with some good arguments. Instead, he had sounded indulgent, and his subsequent words were pitched to be reassuring. He continued, "All the experts agree that--" but I let my ears and fingers take care of recording his bushwa in shorthand while I concentrated on business. The next move that mattered at this meeting would be mine, whether or not he knew that.

Mrs. Williams started her reply. Timing my gestures to her talking, I leaned back in the clerk's chair by Mrs. Williams' desk, which made the chair creak. Then I flipped a page of my dictation pad and crossed one leg over the other. My hem slid up the exact distance I had intended. You had to be watching -- I was, of course -- to see his eyes flick down and then away. Mrs. Williams kept talking, and I made a tiny, sneaky adjustment to a stocking with the hand holding my pen. After that, the trick was in looking up at the right moment to catch his gaze, but I had performed this sort of maneuver for years.

Not sheepish, not embarrassed, not amused, not suspicious or comprehending: no, this look was confident and hungry. Then Mrs. Williams asked him a question, and his gaze slid back to her as he smiled blandly and replied. He was not really paying attention to what she was saying.

The rest of the meeting was business as usual. They continued to talk money, a subject about which I had learned just enough to know that he was angling for fiscal tactics that Mrs. Williams would never employ in the way he was suggesting. He was bright enough to back up quickly when she started frowning, but that reaction was also a mistake. While she said she would consider what he had said in the gentle, lady-like tones she saves for kids, bystanders, and saps, I sensed one more examination of my legs from his direction.

As I escorted him out afterwards, I let my gaze shift toward him and gave him a smile he could interpret however he pleased.

"I'll need a copy of your notes," he said.

I used the show-business voice on him, low and husky. "Of course. Sent down to your office, sir?"

"Yes, thank you." He smiled a little too warmly, and our handshake at the door, which I could have done without, went on for a little too long.

Returning to the corner office, I sat down in the creaky chair again. Making sure to exaggerate the motion, I crossed my legs and adjusted the other stocking.

Mrs. Williams smiled dryly. "Well?"

"I bet he will telephone me."

"No wager."

"I bet I could vamp him, too, since he thinks he is clever about women. Of course, I cannot tell you much about the fiscal abilities of the gent in question."

"About the same. He's smart enough to see he's usually right. He's not smart enough to understand he still makes mistakes. And, as you confirmed, he certainly believes he knows better than any woman, whether he's conscious of that belief or not. He also lacks wariness. An easy target for Mr. Moorehead or his equivalent. Useless."

I nodded agreement. Given how I now earned my living, fellows like the vice president in question were useless to me, too. A chorus girl, especially a Ziegfeld girl, needs to keep around rich men to pick up the dinner checks at the fancy joints in which she is expected to loiter for the sake of publicity. Back then, I had done what I had to, skipping the payment they expected by being careful choosing my company.

These days, I could pay for my own speakeasies, and they did not have to be the ritzy ones rich fellows liked any more. Also, a percentage of the price of my get-ups got compensated as a company expense, which took the worst of the weight off of me. That by itself was worth a little flirting for the firm.

Mrs. Williams was studying my legs with a frown on her face. Since I knew this was not a matter of appreciation, I wondered if I had a run in one of my stockings until she asked, "Will he be annoying you?"

"That far, I did not let him get. Besides, he must have been warned about bothering your staff."

"I'm sure Gerald--" the big cheese at First Farmer's and Apothecary's "--warned him about ignoring me, too. He always does warn them. And yet, they still do. How sad for their future prospects."

The last words were as phony-sorrowful as the announcement of the landlord's agent who is evicting you. I grinned.

"I'll be speaking with Gerald, again. I suppose that will add to my reputation as a persnickety woman, suspicious as a snake, and hell bent on having her own way. So much for the Empress of Wall Street." She shook her head. "Let's review those notes on the Chicago holdings before Mr. Harper arrives. I want to believe someone is doing something useful somewhere, and I don't think his report will leave me with that impression."

Mrs. Williams was all business until lunch was past and her Merry Men were assembled in the meeting room to listen to Harper's report. James Pierson Harper, who spent a lot of time being friendly with fellows down in Washington D.C. on Mrs. William's tab, had come to let us know that the Federal Reserve Board was not going to allow the New York Fed to try and slow the skyrocketing stock market by increasing interest rates.

Liu, from Holdings Management, frowned. "That is bad, very bad. This bull market is increasingly a product of speculation."

Harper pressed his lips together and looked sour before he parted them to say, "They know. Even President-Elect Hoover understands economics well enough to notice the problem, but no one wants to take away the punchbowl and then be blamed for the hangovers. Oh, they might bring themselves to toy with somehow discouraging loans for speculation, but I doubt it. They hope to fix the problem by talking sense to folks, telling them not to be fools. "

"Too little, too late," Mrs. Williams said. All heads turned toward her; these were men -- well, and one other woman -- who could see past her bosom to her brains, which was one reason why they had seats around this table. "I'm pulling back from the market and so are others of the old crowd. More will be soon." Harper nodded agreement. "However, the small investors' enthusiasm hasn't dimmed a whit, and neither have the public urgings of the brokerage houses. There's going to be a panic."

Nobody argued with her. Nobody even tried to argue, which was both spooky and a sign of the respect she had earned from the fellows who had seen her work up close.

She continued, "In fact, I'm not sure matters will end with a panic. I believe we are facing a slump, perhaps a severe one."

Nathan asked, "Is this your theory we're talking here or your hunch?" He spread the fingers of both hands wide. "Either way, I'm worried."

Mrs. Williams waited for the murmur of agreement to die down before she said, "Both theory and hunch, I'm afraid. Gentlemen, let's review the situation." They settled in to discuss the economy and the stock market.

An hour later, she asked, "Are we agreed?"

Since it was Harper's meeting, he spoke for the rest. "Well, Mrs. Williams, I fear I share your hunch. Mind you, Yankees like you and I are birthed with pessimism in our blood."

"Too bad the bankers in this town aren't staying true to their blood where the public can see," Nathan said. "And as for the pool operators and brokerage boys -- I guess they were born to be optimists."

Nathan and Harper shared grim smiles, and I heard some snorts and coughing around the table. Only men of "proper" Anglo-Saxon stock ran the big banks, mainstay investment firms, and trust companies of Manhattan. Pool operators, on the other hand, invested money for themselves and their friends. They were mostly outsiders trying to get in, the same sorts of men who were willing to work for Mrs. Williams. Even Harper, having gone and ruined his pedigree by marrying the daughter of a Portuguese mill worker, could have ended up at a regional brokerage house. A girl did not need to know her onions about finance to understand why most such fellows would not want to criticize a market that was lifting them as it rose.

Mrs. Williams said, "Very well. I will continue to exit the market." She paused, took a deep breath, and said, "I also wish to table my plans to finish dealing with the Kingstone Trust situation."

Those words were followed by another pause. In fact, those words started a silence that I was left to break. Gee, what an honor, being the stenographer in the corner and yet trusted by all these smart characters to deal with the boss' bombshell. "You want to ease the pressure on Mr. Moorehead's Trust, ma'am?"

"Yes." Her face was calm, but I was sitting close enough that the pale knuckles of her interlaced fingers gave her away. She was squeezing her hands together. "The situation is too unstable to risk causing the collapse of Kingstone. A few more months of this nonsense, and any short, sharp shock to the market could start a panic."

Christensen, who ran accounts, nodded. "As the 1907 run on the Mercantile National did. You are likely correct, ma'am, even with the Federal Reserves now in place."

If you could say a fellow bowed sitting down, that is what Christensen did. Then the other attendees stopped being shocked and starting agreeing. The meeting adjourned soon afterward. Mrs. Williams returned to her office, and I followed her there once I had handed over my notes to Mrs. Kelly for typing and distribution by the steno pool.

When I went in, Mrs. Williams had her eyes shut and was rubbing her temples like her head hurt. I had to squash an urge to offer to rub them for her, which just goes to show you how rattled I still was. Instead, I sat down and waited, a task I was repeating a lot that day.

This time, her first line surprised me. "Do you know anything about publicity?"

"Sure. I was a Ziegfeld girl. But you should also talk to one of your Merry Men, depending on what you want done."

"You do it. Speak with whomever you need. Get me interviews in a few of the women's periodicals: The Ladies Home Journal, those sorts of places. Perhaps a newspaper or two."

"Since when do you give interviews?"

"Since now. Any interest garnered by my avoiding the press in the past can be spent on your insisting that they publish the interviews quickly and don't edit my dire predictions about this speculative bubble."

"I thought someone just said it was too late to talk sense to fools."

"Too late for that, yes. It might not be too late to warn some of those who are merely misinformed."

"If you speak with the ladies' magazines, they will ask you about home decor or the like, not to mention seeking words of advice for our mothers of the future."

"I'm sure I can manage a few platitudes about not buying on installment plans and putting together bright, airy rooms. As for the rest, women readers seem more likely to believe a woman financier. Perhaps."

"And even if they do not believe you, you will still sleep better afterward."

"I see you comprehend. Make those appointments, then." She frowned. "Why all the questions? That's not like you, once you understand what I want."

I guess she had earned my leveling with her. "You also like me to help you argue with yourself when you are trying something risky. This will be risky for your pride." 

She paused to study me. "True. Also, clever."

"Mr. Goldman fixes problems for you. Mr. Christensen fixes numbers, Mr. Liu fixes the holdings, and Mr. Harper fixes fellows who will not listen to a woman. You pay me to fix you."

Mrs. Williams laughed, which made for a good look on her. Then she said, "If you mean to keep doing your job, you will have to stay closer. I'll need a great deal of fixing over the next few months, in order not to strangle any of my future appointments. 'All the experts agree,' indeed."

"What you will need is to find a new hobby, one to use the time that will be freed up from pursuing vengeance, one to keep you from brooding too much. I hear art collecting is very big in wealthy circles these days. Also, antiques." I glanced around the office.

Her long, dark lashes dipped to veil her gray eyes. "I certainly hope I could find something more entertaining to pursue than that."

I could think of one good possibility, but I kept my kisser shut. An early decision to keep my new employer far away from my private life had made Cat Hughes one healthy, wealthy, and wise little Sapphist. Believe you me, I intended to affirm that wisdom by going on like I had begun.

As it turned out, 1929 would not be the year when wisdom won the World Series at What Happened Field.

 

II -- Spring

After the big February meeting, I did keep closer to Mrs. Williams. To be specific, we moved the file cabinets out of the anteroom to her office, as we had discussed doing on and off for a couple of years. Then my desk moved in from the big office I had shared two doors down. In exchange for losing some space, I got my very own window, chair for guests, and baby rubber tree in a pot. I even got a patch of bare wall where I could hang a framed poster for the '23 Follies, my last show.

My move was not really meant to discourage Mrs. Williams from strangling anyone. Rather, me typing loudly with her door ajar between us, or strolling in to remind her of an appointment, or starting an argument over some hooey, could nudge her out of those oh-vague-is-me moods that washed over her every now and then during the next few months. I might have taken the moods for spring fever if I had not known that she was feeling the emptiness from giving up her years of revenge, kind of the way someone prods a tongue at the gap from which a bad tooth has been yanked.

I did not mind Mrs. Williams' revenge; my history with the Moorehead family was rough. I did not mind her dropping the revenge, either, since I had won my own tiny skirmish with Old Man Moorehead years ago. But I did mind a dynamo like her just spinning away with all that power now free to go I was not sure where. That not knowing made me nervous enough to bellyache to some of my friends.

"So," Bea asked me, "did Her Imperial Majesty condescend to get a hobby like you suggested?"

I was down in the Village, at Louis' Luncheon, dining with an old show business pal. The fact Louis' was favored by Ziegfeld Girls, writers, and other such artistic types, which we both were, masked the fact it was also favored by Sapphists, which we both were, too.

"Aside from trying to terrify small stock speculators? She is still looking."

Bea snorted delicately. "She sure terrified me. I sold all my hard-earned Radio Corporation of America shares. My accountant nearly wept."

"You will thank her for that later, as will your nearest and dearest, including your accountant. Last week, she attempted contract bridge."

"Any good?"

"I have been informed that the way to a new bridge club's heart is not to win all the pots or whatever they are called. Last weekend, there was seemingly bird watching, which was reported to have its points of interest but led to a confrontation with a farmer with a shotgun. Guess who won."

"After all your stories of the past few years, I don't have to guess."

"Next Wednesday evening, she is trying mah-jongg." At that prospect, both Bea and I shuddered.

Then she got the look on her face that I knew meant mischief before she said, "Perhaps Mrs. Williams should take up dancing."

"She has never shown a weakness for gigolos."

"Well, then, you should bring her along to one of our social functions. I'd love to meet her, and I'm sure the girls would enjoy the chance at some heavy sugar in the right bowl, for a change. If magazine photographs don't lie, that is one red-hot mama you work for."

My stare was pained, and I intended to comment, at length. But I noticed, just in time, that Bea had this tiny, self-satisfied smile on her face, so I settled for changing the subject. "Speaking of dancing, Nathan asked me out again."

"Are you going?"

"Sure. He is a good date. We went together to last year's costume ball at Webster Hall." We both knew what attending a ball with so much dragging hinted about Nathan, but I spent enough time these days away from places like the Village to blow some smoke across the issue without thinking. "I know he looks like a basset hound, but you should see him move across a dance floor."

With an eye-roll, Bea said, "Oh, well, then. I'll listen for the sound of wedding bells."

I kept quiet. So did she for a good, long while. Then, "He asked you?"

"Yes. He did not push or anything."

"And your answer?"

I shrugged. "I said I would think about it." At her look, I added, "You know. Neither of us is a spring chicken any more. And kids."

"There is that," she said. We both paused from the talking to chew, me thinking about my empty apartment and her maybe thinking about the one she shared, but not with the thundering of tiny feet.

After I had finished my tuna salad, I said, "Nathan would not make me stop working unless I wanted to. And he is a fine fella. We get along swell. Also, babies are cute and interesting."

"Maybe you should consider the order of those sentences."

"True, I do like to pay my own bills."

She started to say something more, but I had caught sight of my wristwatch. "Shoot, I am about to be late. Next Friday again?"

She waved a hand. "Go. I'll get the tab this time."

"Say hello to the other half of the act for me," I said before I grabbed my pocket book and headed for the stairs up to street level. I did not want to be late back to work because today was a check day.

If you wondered before why I called Mrs. Williams' senior staff her Merry Men when she so obviously stole from the rich to give to the rich – the latter rich being her -- that may be because I have yet to explain about check days. I guess check days are also a good example of how much of Mrs. Williams' life had been shaped by her revenge on the Knickerbocker boys up until that year.

Some of what she did that was different was due to her upbringing, or being like Maude, or not being like Maude. But anything she had not started with an opinion about, she found an opinion about by choosing what the likes of Moorehead would hate. He was a Republican, and she was a Democrat. He mostly lived elsewhere, and she mostly lived in town. He hired promising young men from good homes and worried that they were the right sorts, and she hired dubious fellows from strange places and worried about how good they were. He bullied, she bribed.

More to the point, Mr. Samuel Augustus Moorehead was a pillar of his church, a sponsor of his Ivy League endowment fund, a popular supporter of eugenics, a sought-after speaker about the power of education to Americanize, and a builder of many public buildings with all of his names on them. So, every quarter without fail, Mrs. Williams would settle down and sign juicy checks drawn against a special account for anonymous donations to a bunch of organizations, often ones not popular around the Manhattan gentlemen's clubs. In fact, a few of those checks, she could not even have delivered herself without causing comment, which was when her staff took over.

Okay, I admit that I enjoyed check days. I especially liked dropping off the check at the Actor's Fund and watching them salivate. Still, I was also interested to see what effect shelving her revenge would have on this quarterly ritual.

As it turned out, not much. Back from my long lunch -- yes, I had permission, thank you -- I found myself filling out the check ledger pretty much like usual.

As I sat there, tearing loose the checks for her to sign, I said, "You could write one enormous check to the Communist Party, make that fact public, and listen to all the other Wall Street privateers scream as one."

"I refuse to lose the rest of my fun. For that matter, I refuse to lose the rest of my money under the dictatorship of the proletariat, which also argues against your suggestion, I'm afraid." She signed the check to the ACLU, blotted it, slid it into its envelope, and added it to the stack on her desk. "Next?"

When I passed over the Actor's Fund check, she studied it with doubt for a second, just to razz me back some before she signed it and put it into its envelope. "Next?" 

This was a little stack, and I looked through them, double-checking. "War chests for some of the A. F. of L. member organizations, huh? Strike funds."

"There's more than one recipient who would make the privateers scream if they knew." The smile faded. "If I'm right about the next few years, these particular recipients will be needed. Nor will I mind them knowing my name."

Why she figured that was the case, I neither knew nor wanted to know, since the only possibility I could come up with was too scary for business hours. I handed over the checks. She signed them, the last one with a flourish. Then she blotted and asked, "Next?" again.

"That is all, end of the As. We worked through the stacks in reverse order this time."

The final checks went into their envelopes and onto the pile. "Good. My fingers were starting to cramp."

"Well, if you will use your special 'my name is squiggle-squiggle' signature for this job, I am not surprised." I gathered up the big pile of envelopes and put a fat rubber band around them. Mrs. Kelly would make sure all the envelopes got into the hands that would deliver them.

Picking up the bundle and the ledger, I turned to leave right as she asked, "Catherine?"

Her using my given name meant some personal matter would follow. I turned back.

"Would you do me the favor of joining me for dinner at the Colony this evening?"

What a dumb idea. "Sure, that would be fine."

"Seventeen minutes," she said, reaching for a folder from the stack on a corner of her desk.

She did not mean it would be seventeen minutes until we went out to eat, but that it would be seventeen minutes until she was done for the day, and I could get ready to leave. We would both need to go home and change before dining. Nobody gets into the Colony except in proper eveningwear, and nobody of note arrives there before eight.

Since my boss is the contrary sort, we would be dining at seven sharp. We always dined at seven sharp, and she would need my presence so that she could be seated without delay. Even the Empress of Wall Street had problems getting a table as a solo female, which was why I had accompanied her to such places in the past when she had gotten a yen for fancy cooking by someone other than the St. James chef and without the escort of a banker or a business bigwig. As a former Ziegfeld girl, I could dress and dine in the ritzy places with confidence, an advantage for the confidential secretary to a top-of-the-heap businesswoman.

Mrs. Williams picked me up in a taxi at my place in the Village -- even she would not try two walks and a subway trip while in eveningwear and a cloak -- and we kept quiet for most of the ride up to 61st Street. Odd: usually somebody on Wall Street was doing something mean to somebody else with a big sack of moolah, which made for easy chatter between us.

I studied her expression along the way, but she did not seem to be distracted, only considering. Catching my gaze on her, she smiled, and I found I was smiling back. But that was okay: if you work for someone long enough, closely enough, you do not stay neutral, any opinions of other people's figures all aside.

When she cleared her throat, my smile turned into a grin. She said, "Yes, I'm a bit uncertain about this evening."

"I can tell."

The frown she tried on did not quite work. "You see, the problems about which I want to consult you have nothing to do with your job."

"You mean I am not just helping you land a table tonight?" I considered. "Oh, I get you. You are thinking of that talk we had a few months back, the one about your paying me to be your fixer of you. I appreciate the show of respect for my dealing with something while off the clock, but you did not have to go this far. I know a nice place in the Village that serves good Italian food and where you would not have had to doll up."

"Dressing properly does me good, every now and then. Besides, I like The Colony."

"It is fine if you do not mind everyone in town overhearing your business."

Her lips quirked, and she made a point of looking toward the back of the driver's head. I had to give her that one. In a pretty obvious try to change the subject, she asked, "Is there anything going on in theater I should know about?"

"Well, I already told you about the business difficulties they are having all of a sudden, so I imagine you want to know whether or not you should have gone to see Show Boat. You should have. Now your choices are down to--"

What with my theater talk and her responses, mostly dry, the rest of the trip went fast and smooth. So I was in good shape to cope with what I saw uncovered when she lost the cloak to The Colony's coatroom.

Clean living, moody walking, financial throat cutting, and money sure seemed to preserve a woman's looks. And she was wearing a dark blue satin number that actually clung to her waist before widening to fall in a cascade of folded layers to a handkerchief hem just below her knees. The bodice was not low-cut, but it also did not hide what was happening between the pearls draped around her neck and the pointed drop waist. I was torn between wishing her dress had pretended and being pleased that it had not.

I have had plenty of practice in dressing rooms, so I did not allow any heat to leak into my assessment. But Mrs. Williams had glanced over for my opinion -- she respects the value of professional experience -- and I gave it with a brisk nod and a cool, "Everything is Jake."

"Good. The cut seemed a little unconventional, but I liked the effect." She sighed. "I wish I could wear the current fashions."

Although I was pleased with my poppy-patterned black silk, I said, "They will change soon. They always do."

"A good business model." She smiled.

"Aw, too bad. We had managed to chatter without mentioning business for fifteen entire minutes, and you had to go and spoil it."

"You're getting ahead of me again," she said without explanation, but she did not sound displeased. Then the maître d' arrived to seat us, which stuck a fork into that conversation, too.

We managed to pick up the small talk again and keep it going all the way through the chicken and asparagus that had been French sauced to within an inch of their deaths. After that, Mrs. Williams sighed, crossed her fork and knife on her plate, and said, "About that problem I need fixed. I've been telling you of my attempts to follow your advice and find a hobby."

"Entertaining. For me."

"I'm sure. As you have no doubt noticed, my ideas don't seem to be working out well. I've also realized how few friends I have left to offer more suggestions. In fact, I've realized how rusty I am at dealing with anything that doesn't have to do with business."

I frowned, sorting through the bits of her private life that I had let myself notice. "You must have been doing something during the half an hour per day that you were not thinking about either Moorehead or money."

"Over the past decade, I have read quite a few good books." If her smile got any drier, they would be using it over in the bar to make martinis.

"Also, you dine with some of the Merry Men and their wives from time to time."

"Those dinners are just another kind of business meeting: the meals are hard on familial nerves, and most of their wives either dislike me, are cautious around me, or fear me a little. Except for Mrs. Harper, but she is disinterested in money and preoccupied with her three children, so there isn't much common ground upon which we can meet. A pity; she's both sharp and amusing."

"How about finding someone new? Lots of people would be happy to pal around with you."

"That is the problem, isn't it? Many people do want to be the friend of Mrs. Williams; I'm not sure how many of them want to be my friend."

"I get you. The 'friend' equivalents of gigolos are not what you are after, here. Although you should not cross off everyone you pay from the friendly list, in my opinion. After all, you are asking me to play Miss Emily Post for you, which maybe hints at good will on both sides."

A little of the gin went out of her smile. "True. However, I'm still left needing to find enough company to help me with a hobby or two. I can hardly ask you to, oh, play tennis with me after your having spent the previous eight hours making your living by catering to my whims."

"I agree, it is smart not to mix work and pleasure."

Then I broke off talking to study her, kind of surprised. Her words had added the last piece to a jigsaw I had not known I was assembling in my head. Darned if Mrs. Williams was not hopeless in the social department.

Swell. This fiscal predator, one with enough berries to French sauce her prey like the chicken on my plate, was also a flat tire. That fact should not be endearing. It was, a little. But said wallflower predator was now waiting for me, with her eyebrows raised, to find something smarter to say than, "Aw, how cute. Sad, but cute."

Truth worked well with her, so I would try some of it. "You are no good in the social department."

"I am not. A few years of deportment tutors don't make up for inconsistent upbringing and surroundings. But I don't have room for complaining, given the rest of my life."

"Sure. However, this means you should not tackle the pals problem before the hobby trouble. I say instead that you should get something to do and then make some friends doing it. You will have a fighting chance to spot the truly interested and cold-shoulder the bums if you are doing something fun with them. After all, you know how to weigh up people you see working."

"True."

"As to what hobbies to pick, society is out since you hate all that static. And you do not need more solo work for your brain. Is there anything you tried that you have not mentioned?" We settled in to discuss possible pastimes.

Finding an answer would have been nice. Instead, we got a visitor. He spotted Mrs. Williams as he came in, and he broke away from his party to advance on our table. The Colony dining room is paneled with wood painted white, so we could not pretend to lose him against the background once he stood there in his eveningwear, looming above us with the maître d' having quiet fits at his elbow. It seemed that Mr. Samuel A. Moorehead was out on the town with the remains of his family and in a mood for some drama.

Mrs. Williams looked up at him, somehow seeming to stare down her aquiline nose. "Samuel. I might offer you a drink, but Miss Hughes and I aren't drinking this evening. Boring of us, I know."

"What are you up to now?"

"Dessert, I hope," she said, back to sounding as dry as straight gin.

"Don't play coy. You had better rethink this latest scheme of yours. I'm busy, and I don't have time for any of your nonsense."

"Then I would recommend your enjoying your dinner."

He studied her for a moment, his wrinkled old face still, only his eyes alive and nasty. A vein throbbed at his temple. "Don't think you've gotten too big to break. Stay out of my way." His eyes slid to me. "You."

"Have we met, sir?" I gave him the all-out Ziegfeld voice. We had met, but not in circumstances he would want to discuss at The Colony. He did not try. Instead, he snorted and turned to stomp over to his own table, which was likely all that saved the only nerve the maître d' had still intact.

"Well." Mrs. Williams sounded thoughtful. "If I had known that ignoring him would have this effect, I would have tried it years ago." She turned her attention to me and smiled, slow and sweet. "Dessert?"

"Sure." Any more of that particular smile, and I would need ice cream.

The mood did not seem very good over at Moorehead's table. His son even glared at us once or twice. As for us, we took our time over dessert and coffee before we exited to take the taxi the doorman had hailed for us.

On the way back downtown, Mrs. Williams shifted in close and said, her volume low because of the driver, "Ask Nathan on Monday to check Mr. Moorehead. Don't do anything, just make sure he isn't about to bother me. And find out what he is doing."

"Okay."

"Not that I much care what he's doing any more. Still, I wouldn't take three steps to push him out of the way of a runaway ice wagon."

"That last bit relieves me. I was worried."

"Oh?"

I had sounded too serious. "Between your turn-the-other-cheek routine and your free warnings to small investors, I was wondering if you had been visited by a ghost and three spirits last Christmas or something."

"Heavens, no. Can you imagine Mother returning to castigate me for worrying about money too much? Mankind her business? The accumulation of wealth was her business. The clutching tight of every single nickel was her business."

"Good, since Mrs. Harper would be alarmed if you tried to send her and the kids a gigantic turkey out on Long Island this Christmas. Although I would have enjoyed watching Mr. Harper hint that you needed to see one of those psychoanalyst fellas."

"Mine was nothing as dramatic as Scrooge's experience. I have merely reconsidered a few matters since--" She paused, her face half in shadow. "I don't want to talk about this, which means I owe you an apology for sitting on information you need to do your job. I am also sorry Mr. Moorehead took note of you."

"Since I am off the clock, you do not have to apologize for keeping me free from more work. As to Moorehead, I knew he would not forget me. But I won, so--" I shrugged, not concerned she would miss a gesture in the dark when she sat this close to me.

Her perfume mixed lilac and vanilla, old-fashioned but still nifty. The spring air outside the taxi also smelled sweet beneath the city smells. It had stayed warm even after sunset; Mrs. Williams had left off her cloak. The satin of her dress gleamed softly in the passing light from neon signs and streetlamps as she shifted slightly on the seat. Somehow, I knew her skin would be like spring, soft and warm beneath my fingers. But her touch on me would be firmer, determined. Then there would be heat.

I heard my breath catch. But I was not going to try anything that scorched in a taxicab headed down Broadway, I told myself.

Mrs. Williams cleared her throat before saying, "Now, then. You never did explain what the problem is with mah-jongg."

 

III -- Summer

Dim, I was not. Our taxi trip in May had been a warning that Mrs. Williams was not the only one who needed a new friend to help her with an interesting hobby. Between my daytime working hours and my having money to rent a solo apartment, my social life had slowed since I left behind show business and my fellow chorus girls.

I had long ago learned not to order off any menu that included both love and me, but I still preferred a steady meal to the side dish of drama that could accompany overnight binges. But lately I was fasting, and that needed to stop.

Almost two years had passed since my last flame left me behind with nothing more than a lingering kiss and the promise of postcards from Hollywood. Even so, I had not noticed how hungry I was until I almost vamped my boss. I knew said vamping would not have been wise even if Mrs. Williams had been willing, and I had no evidence that she was. The time had come to seek steady company.

I set out to try and find that company with the same kind of grim focus that Mrs. Williams was using on modern theater, still-life painting, and Parcheesi. Just like I might have predicted if I had been thinking straight, the interesting possibilities fled before me like pigeons spotting a prowling, well, cat. A few months wasted on this hooey, at the same time I was both watching the stock market like it was going to fall on my head and trying not to stare after Mrs. Williams as she strolled around her office dictating, had me in a state. It was a relief, what with all of this, to spend the odd evening out with Nathan.

That Monday in August, Mrs. Williams was off having lunch with the governor and his wife, so Nathan felt free to perch on the corner of my desk after he had closed the outside door to what was now my office. "Hi, Cat. You want to go to the Blue Moon Ball over at Webster Hall this Friday?"

"Sure. Although you must need a date pretty bad since you did not address me as 'doll'."

He grinned. "Sammy is competing in the costume parade, so I will be in big trouble if I don't attend." His grin turned wry. "However, Mr. Moorehead is back on the warpath, so I will be in bigger trouble if I attend without an escort of the female persuasion."

"That is me, all right. An escort of the female persuasion. Serve you right if I dress as Cleopatra."

"You'd keep thinking of Theda Bara and start laughing. Sammy would do a better job."

"Then you have a suggestion, Mr. I-will-ask-four-days-before-the-masquerade?"

He held up one index finger and intoned, "Shakespeare."

"I thought we had rejected Cleopatra."

The finger moved to point at me. "Cesario, a maid posing as a youth. Or maybe a youth posing as a maid posing as a youth." His finger moved on to point at himself. "Antonio, the wistful pirate captain."

"Not wistful. After the last few months, anything but wistful." I studied him, tempted. "These outfits had better be good. I have my standards."

"I know you do. Since I was happy to sponsor, Sammy took care of the matter."

Sammy did costume work for the kind of Broadway shows in which I had once labored. "I love the assumptions here, but fine. You can pick me up at nine-thirty if, and only if, you do not forget to bring by this costume in the next day or two. And would you please vacate my desk, Mr. Goldman? I am expecting the imperial presence to return any minute now."

He laughed, got up, and went over to the outer door. As he opened it, he was confronted by Mrs. Williams back from lunch. She smiled at him, her expression kind of quizzical, and asked, "A problem?"

"Nothing worse than a little office romance," he assured her, before whistling off down the corridor. I rolled my eyes.

Her look of inquiry shifted to me. "Date for dancing on Friday night," I informed her, although it would not have been her business if someone had not considered himself a wit.

"Ah," she said, frowning a little. I wondered why the frown, given that she was fine with staff socializing as long as nobody worked for anybody. She cleared up that confusion when she said, "Gather ye rosebuds, and just as well. I don't like what I'm hearing about construction figures. In a few months, Nathan may not have much free time."

"Which means I will be drafted for overtime, too. Then I am glad that I said yes. Your lunch go okay?"

"Even politics and money can have their dull moments. I do like Eleanor, though."

"I had heard Mrs. Roosevelt is interesting. It is said she is one for a cause, though." I studied her. "Looking for new ways to drive the other privateers off their nuts?"

Her smile, as she headed into her own office, could have substituted on the Sphinx. Outside, I displayed nothing worse than a sigh at the cryptic bushwa. Inside, I was tempted again to trail after her and try touching the merchandise. Maybe I would meet someone interesting at the Ball on Friday evening, I told myself.

I was more cheerful about the chances for friendly encounters once I had tried on Sammy's costume. He had dumped the Robin Hood look for Shakespearian youths that I had noticed in theaters recently, and was imposing his version of Elizabethan fashions on Illyria instead. Floppy-sleeved shirts and pumpkin pants had always struck me as hooey, but they did work well with the favored female form for the decade, and I liked the short doublet of wine-red velvet. Not to mention, my legs looked tasty in the long, tight stockings and short, pointed shoes, even if I was thinking so myself.

Moving properly in clothes intended for the other side takes practice, especially when you will be wearing a short sword, which I would be. I freshened up my practice. Then I went and found a full-length coat to hang up with the costume although this was August and the nights stayed hot way after sunset. Going out in disguise is technically illegal in the state of New York, and you really do need a license, along with a couple of well-paid moonlighting cops in attendance, to hold a big masquerade. It was wise to go to the ball discreetly covered both coming and going, especially if you found any reason to dress up like the other sex.

At least Nathan looked like he was supposed to look when he came to pick me up. Well, Nathan never looked like how Wall Street thought he should look. But he did look manly, rich, and respectable enough, even in his Elizabethan pirate get-up, to hold the taxicab in front of my row house apartment while he came upstairs to fetch me.

I was glad Webster Hall was a short ride away. My coat was hot, and bits and pieces of costume dug into me beneath it. The sword was a special treat.

"Too warm?" Nathan asked.

"Do not bother with sticking this metal toothpick into me to check; I am baked," I said, just as we pulled to the curb near the entrance to the Hall. We were one of a line of taxicabs emptying out passengers into a crowd around the door as a bored patrolman looked on. "Good crowd this evening."

"Air conditioning," said Nathan with gloomy relish. "The attraction certainly can't be the bootleg they dispense at these affairs. Coffin-varnish."

"Let us hope that at least part of the attraction is Sammy, or there will be wailing and the gnashing of teeth."

"Here's our chance to go see," Nathan said as our cab inched forward to the front of the line.

Inside, the hall was already loud and crowded. The jazz band struck up "I Can't Give You Anything But Love," just as we entered and handed over our coats to the attendant, but everyone kept talking, too. After all, this ball was being held in the Village.

The usual three groups at a Village masquerade were all there: the natives, trying to show off their cleverness with what they wore, the competitors, dressing like the economy depended on their efforts, and the gawkers, often not bothering with much more than a half-mask as they gaped at the other two groups. A lot of the soon-to-be competitors in the costume parade were lavender lads -- and a few lasses -- in drag. Nathan and I were supposed to be a couple of gawkers, but like more of the gawkers than you might think, we were as much a part of that queer display as Sammy was in his Elizabethan gown.

Out on the floor, I avoided a fellow wearing furs before and not much aft -- he was supposed to be a warm front -- as I asked Nathan, "Are you going to try for a dance?"

I meant with Sammy and not with me. Nathan could get away with dancing with another fellow once or twice if the inside cop was feeling benign and Nathan's partner was dressed well enough to be "mistaken" for a female.

"You first, young Cesario," Sammy said, coming up from behind us. I was impressed; the gown proved to be a truly inspiring number in red velvet and gold lace. Also, there was a fan, a wig, and a veil, all involving pearls.

"The Countess Olivia, I presume?" I guessed.

Sammy swept me a curtsey. I had been on the boards long enough to spot a prompt. Bowing, I offered my arm.

I danced a waltz with Sammy. I danced a Charleston with Nathan. I danced foxtrots with a couple of brave fellows in half-masks and a lindy hop with one very brave flapper who -- too bad -- giggled. I danced with a neighbor from the Village, a second-banana comic I knew from a past Folly, and an old pal whose girlfriend was off at the seashore with her husband. The amazing new air conditioning strained to keep up with the crowd and mostly failed; around us, the room slowly heated. Nathan and I tried imbibing several varieties of coffin varnish against the heat, ones that at least proved to be designed for high-class coffins.

While I danced the last foxtrot before the costume parade with a fellow I thought I knew, behind the Zorro mask, as a securities courier during the day, I noticed Nathan talking with a man not in costume on the edge of the crowd. A minute later, Nathan plowed his way across the dance floor and tapped my partner on the shoulder. "Sorry, fella. Breaking in."

Once he had me, instead of continuing the dance, Nathan towed me back across the floor and into a corner by the paid seats.

"There is a problem?" I asked. I had recognized the man Nathan had talked to as one of his street operators.

"Moorehead is dead."

I whistled.

"You bet. Apoplexy. Mrs. Williams isn't answering her telephone at the St. James, and they won't send anyone upstairs."

"She is in, I am pretty sure, but sometimes she gets in a mood and tells the front desk that she wants privacy." Behind us, I heard the dance music stop, and then the flourish of the trumpets that meant the costume parade was beginning. You could barely see Nathan wince, but I am paid to notice such gestures. "I will go over and make sure she is indeed home. You come join me as soon as you are done with your business here."

"I knew there was a reason I proposed," he said, and clapped me on the shoulder.

"This get-up is confusing you. Beat it." Taking my own advice, I blew the joint.

When I made it out into the nighttime air, my head swam. At least I had remembered my coat, and the outside cop was bored enough to hail me a taxi for nothing more than a smile. On the way over to the St. James Hotel, I rolled down the window and worked on deep breathing.

I did not waste time on the night clerk at the hotel although I think he knew my face. Instead, I went straight to the center elevator. At least my memory was still okay; this was Bill's late night on shift. When he slid open the grate, he was really good about ignoring me clutching my coat closed where it would no longer button over the costume. Maybe I should have lost the sword back with Nathan.

"I fear Mrs. Williams is not in, Miss Hughes," Bill said. I could not blame him for lumping me in as a gatecrasher. Not only was my get-up a treat, but I bet I smelled of all that coffin varnish.

Demands would be useless. He knew his job. But behind the wide smile that I wondered if he only wore at work, Bill was a smart fellow. He would also know a lot about anyone who had a thumb in his family's pie. I told him, "Mr. Moorehead just died."

The always-cheerful expression flickered for a second. "Would that be Mr. Samuel A. Moorehead?"

"That is the fellow, yes."

Bill moved out of the way, and I entered the elevator car. As he closed the grate and got us going, I told him, "Mr. Goldman will be here soon. I believe, aside from him, that Mrs. Williams is still out?"

"I believe you are right, Miss," Bill said, and I settled to rubbing the back of my neck as I tried to think. This ride was one hurtle leapt, but who knew how many more were left to go?

Bill left me in the penthouse foyer to fumble for the velvet drawstring purse I was wearing instead of carrying a clutch. After a few seconds I gave up and peeled off the coat to gain access; I could pick it up from the chairs on the way out. I ditched the sword, too, since this was not the charge up St. James Hill. Then I pulled out the key I carried in case Mrs. Williams forgot a document at home. For some reason -- Coffin varnish? My worry making me dim? -- I did not think to try knocking first. I just used the key and went in.

Her penthouse suite was the smaller of two such suites on the top floor of the St. James, or so I had been informed. Inside was a living room mixed up with a dining room, a bathroom, and a couple of tiny bedrooms, one converted into a study. Meals, as I think I mentioned, were ordered up and the maids came in most days. Otherwise, Mrs. Williams lived privately in a space about the size of my apartment and liked it that way. So I could tell right off as I entered that she really was at home, since she was lounging around on the living room sofa, listening to a gramophone record playing softly on the Victor Radiola.

Although I could never let Mrs. Williams know this, I enjoyed the blue silk dressing gown that she often wore at breakfast. Now I could enjoy even more the brief and lacy teddy she wore beneath that dressing gown, and I could enjoy most of all what that teddy hinted about who she was once she was at home alone.

I think she had been half-dozing when I came in, but she sat up quickly and gracefully from reclining among all those pillows. "Catherine?" Then she was on her bare feet, the dressing gown open as she crossed the carpet to me. "Something's wrong. The way you're dressed--"

"A masquerade ball." I planted one mitt on my hip, swept the other down from head to knee with the appropriate, boyish flourish, and said, "Behold Cesario, ma'am. But you are right, I have news."

That is when the train went off the track. She had been gazing at me as I spoke, her gray eyes intent. When I paused, she shook her head and said softly, "Oh. Oh, poor Olivia." Then her fingers reached out to slide in slow fascination along the collar of my doublet before flattening out against what would have been my chest if I had been Sebastian. I was not.

Her eyes went wide when she realized where she was. She looked up at me; Ziegfeld girls run tall, and I topped her by three inches, which was not something I ever noticed during working hours. Now I remembered, especially when her tongue darted out to moisten her lips. "Cat," she said and got stuck.

I thought I was opening my own lips to say something cute in reply that would get us out of this. But, no. I found I was leaning close, meeting no resistance. Then I found I was seeking her still parted lips with my own, the first kiss swift and light, and the second long and searching.

Bye-bye, job. But this was almost worth it. And that was all the thinking I could do while I kissed her the way I had wanted to since I first saw her. Her lips were still against my own when I began, and she startled a little when I made my way inside, but her mouth was wet and warm, welcoming. She tasted as sweet as her perfume, as sweet as chocolate.

The fabric of her dressing gown shifted beneath my fingers until I had my arms around her; her one hand was still between us against my right breast, so I guess she knew what I was feeling. But I also felt her other hand suddenly grab hard at the back of my doublet, clutching me close as her lips came alive.

My pulse sped up. I could sense, as much as hear, her small moan. The touch of her silk teddy with smooth skin beneath it, the press of her breasts and hips against me, were driving me nuts. If I did not stop now, I would be using everything I had learned to make sure her impulse flared into want and then burned as need: no fair.

Pulling away, I realized I still had one hand cupping her hip and removed it. Her own hand unclenched from my doublet, and she stepped back to stare at me, her eyes wide, her lips looking lavishly kissed in the low light.

I kept quiet. I had grabbed. She got to talk.

She took a deep breath. Then both her hands were reaching out to cradle my face, holding it coaxingly as if I was going to try running away. She leaned in, going up on her toes a little to kiss me with a fierce attention that made up for a pretty obvious lack of experience. But her tongue demanded more lessons from me, and I provided them. She learned fast, no surprise but still deadly.

For a few minutes the room went quiet except for the soft sounds of "'Deed I Do" playing on the Radiola, the close, hot noises of necking, and the rustle of cloth disarranged by urgent hands. When I somehow managed to pull away again, her response was half groan and half predatory growl. Now I was the one who was wanting, drenched with need. Too bad my biggest need was not to bollix this up even more than I had.

"Helen."

Her eyelids were still half-closed, and she looked up at me from underneath their lashes. "I didn't know you knew I prefer Helen to Mabel."

"I did not know you knew my nickname, so we are even. Do you get what is happening here?"

"Socially inept is not naïve. Well, not naïve that way, anyhow. This is perverse as all hell." She shook her head, and her yearning sigh before she stepped farther back had a huskiness that made me want to get rid of her dressing gown and teddy, coax her back down onto the sofa, and find other uses for all those pillows. She caught me by surprise when she reached out to rest a hand on my upper arm, a gesture accompanied by a regretful look. I think I must have shuddered a little at the renewed touch. Anyhow, she asked me, "Do you need another drink?"

"You keep bootleg here?"

"For emergencies, yes."

"This qualifies. Small and diluted, okay? As I was trying to say before going gaga, you were not letting your calls go through the hotel switchboard. There is news."

"The market? No, that's silly; it's after hours. What?"

"Moorehead is dead. Apoplexy."

For a moment, she went still, the crystal decanter from behind some books held in one hand, its stopper held in the other. Her face was blank until she suddenly, painfully, laughed. "Of course. Of course."

"Maybe you should also have a drink."

"Maybe I should." She got herself a soda water, though. What she fixed for me was brandy beneath the soda, the real, quality stuff.

She sat on the sofa. I meant to head for an armchair after turning off the Radiola, but she nodded her head toward the sofa beside her. "Too late. Don't bother."

"That is what you say now," I told her, but I sat on the sofa, on the far end.

Tucking her legs beneath her, she reached over to an open box of fancy chocolates parked on the low table by the sofa. After she tilted the box toward me, and I mutely shook my head no, she selected one and consumed it. However, her brain was taking over from her appetites. She studied me intently as she briskly nibbled. Good thing her eyes were also warm, or I would have worried more than I did. "I don't even know where to start," she said when the sweet was gone. 

After one good sip, I had set down my glass on the copy of A Tract on Monetary Reform parked on the side table. "Let me try." I cleared my throat. "I cannot apologize for what I did, but I do apologize for my timing, which was lousy."

She smiled. Then she said, making each word clear, "Since I provoked you, I eagerly accept your apology and offer one of my own in turn. There."

"Still employed?"

"Good heavens, yes. You're smart enough to know how many telephone calls and telegrams need to go out tonight."

"That reminds me. Nathan will be here any minute now."

One hand flew up to the lacy neckline of her teddy. "I'll have to change."

I was careful not to grin. "You might want to check your hair, too. By the way, good-looking outfit. Well put together."

"Thank you," she said. Then she stretched out her hand to me and said, "Cat."

I took her hand, but I foundered on her name. She said, "Helen. Anything other than Helen, at least here and now, is absurd."

"Helen. Are you okay?"

"Oh, yes. On fire. Confused. Also frightened to the edge of tears: sorry about that. All other considerations aside, still of the belief--" She trailed off, looking regretful even as she squeezed my hand and let go.

"Mixing work and pleasure is a bad idea, I know." Pointing out that she would be far from the first Wall Street privateer to sleep with a secretary would not only be unfair but also guarantee that I would never hear "Cat" on her lips again. Besides, she really was correct. "You still believe correctly even if you did not need some time to deal with this, which you do. And you do not have time just now. Also, Nathan will be here soon, and you are wearing my lipstick and powder. Do you mind if I call down for coffee in the meantime?"

Helen was already on her feet again and moving. "Please do. Enough for three."

Before I did, I ducked quickly into her bathroom and checked the mirror. Gosh, what a mess. Knowing an impossible repair job when I saw one, I quickly cleaned off my makeup with her cold cream, giving thanks to show business for my speed. I also combed my hair. Then I went out and ordered coffee before I worked on neatening up my costume. I have to admit, when I had to tuck in my shirt around the hips, my smile was pretty smug.

When Helen came out of her bedroom to head for the bathroom, she was newly dressed in silk pajamas with a terrycloth robe on over them, which I thought was a nice, domestic touch. She then emerged from the bathroom, face freshly scrubbed, right as the coffee arrived and Nathan with it. He was holding the sword I had left in the foyer, and seemed something between worried and amused.

He was sharp, darn it. As Helen talked to the bellboy, Nathan got a good look at my face, blinked, and started to open his mouth. I returned him a level stare, and he had enough sense to settle for raising his free hand, palm out, before easing down into an armchair. I took the other armchair.

"I brought this in," he said, and shook the scabbard at me before leaning it against his armchair. "You shouldn't leave your sword lying around. You never know when you might need it." That earned him another stare, which he parried with an innocent look as he reached for the coffee pot now parked next to the chocolates.

Helen sat down on the sofa, studied us both, and smiled. Nathan passed her a cup of coffee across the table, fixed the way she liked it, just as she said, "A privateer and a young adventurer. How very Elizabethan. How very appropriate." Her smile was gone as if it had never been. "I'm worried about what will happen when the Street discovers the state of the Kingstone Trust. Exactly what time did Mr. Moorehead die?"

We got back to business.

 

IV -- Autumn

This time, Mrs. Williams was out to lunch with Thomas W. Lamont of J. P. Morgan and Co. when Nathan came into my office and shut the door. Once he had parked his posterior on my desk, he opened up without a prelude. He had been enjoying that, lately. "She was changing the way she operated even before you arrived, but your showing up sure accelerated the process."

I looked at him, my hands still on the typewriter keys. "Please. You are the wrong sex to be a yenta."

He shot me a satisfied look. "Even though your Ma died so young, it's nice to see a little Yiddish still got through."

"Show business, you big dope. Get off my desk."

"I don't know. Maybe we could title you a special assistant vice president or something. This secretary business is false advertising."

A ruler. Did I not have a ruler somewhere? I tried opening my lower desk drawer to check.

Nathan, of course, kept right on going. "That's okay. I understand. Someone thinks, 'This is going to be one night of whoopee, just another short-term thing,' and all of a sudden feelings are involved, words are exchanged, stuff starts happening that is not all for fun--"

I did have a ruler. I got it out and let swing, likely a skill inherited from all the aunts who were nuns that I had never met, since my father's family did not approve of mixed marriages any more than my mother's family had. Anyhow, I almost had Nathan forced back to the outside door when, of course, Mrs. Williams opened it.

"Ow! Hey, ow! My heart is not broken; do not break the rest!" Nathan exclaimed, laughing and shielding his face. Then he spotted her, lowered his arms, shot his cuffs, and said, "I was just leaving."

"To review the report Mrs. Goff sent over from Research about the Hawley-Smoot Act? Lovely." Mrs. Williams let him slide by through the doorway, and then stepped inside to close the door again. She looked at me holding the ruler. "I'm glad I know better than to trust my first impression. What a tableau." Then the severe expression got to be too much for her to manage, and she started laughing.

With a sigh, I went to put the ruler away. Mrs. Williams -- no, this was Helen, here -- sat down in the chair I kept for visitors and said, "Amusing. Also, confusing. And none of my business, really."

"Mmmhmm. Nice try." I assessed her. "How are you feeling?"

"Resigned. Or do you mean at the moment?" She bit her lip. "Green?" she asked, trying out the word.

"With lack of experience or with jealousy?"

"Both."

Oh, she must be feeling green about Nathan and me supposedly being able to spoon. "Okay, are you still out on your lunch hour?"

Her gaze focused. "Yes."

"First, he would not be working here if he did not believe he was more of a credit than a debit to the firm's accounts. Second, you do not have to worry about Mr. Goldman. Third, neither do I. Fourth, that is why we date. End of list, at least for now."

"I see." She paused. "And what I don't see is still none of my business."

"There is no principle of ethical business practice that says you can not ask for more information off the clock, you know."

Her smile would have been a grin if it had not been so slow and smoky. "It's not the information I fear, but my desire to ask for illustrations."

I made sure my sigh sounded exasperated, but inside I was pleased. Nobody wants to suffer alone, at least not when lust is the disease. "Flirting."

"Am I? Yes, I suppose you're right." She frowned a little. "I keep remembering and then feeling as if I should be racked with shame and revulsion."

"Not unless you have to be, or want to be. After all, such feelings would take a lot of time away from finance. Me, I recommend substituting wariness and cunning, feelings that are also fitting and that you already know really well as a businesswoman." The almost-grin of hers was back, so I shook my head and added, "Now I will show some wariness of my own by assuming you are back from lunch. I am going to fetch files and the afternoon mail. Coffee?"

She got up. "A poor substitute for honest conversation, but please. I won't need you to take notes about my luncheon with Mr. Lamont. I'll need no prompting to remember poor cooking, poorer drinks, and a half-hour lecture about my being gloomy while the press listens."

Mrs. Williams went into her office, and I sauntered out of mine on my errands, considering as I went. You could not say we had done badly since that hot night in August, but we had not done well, either. The smart choice would have been to stay away from each other, or at least to never refer to what had happened ever again. We were not being smart.

For one thing, it was obvious how little she had known about Sapphic urges before her collision with Cesario. Given that, I could not sit back while she wandered loose until she found trouble. For another thing, at some point during the last five years, we had gotten bad at pretending with each other. That was likely due to my job of fixing her, but oh, well. At least there had not been any more petting parties, and only some flirting, mostly when one of us was not thinking. Maybe I could take Bea's suggestion and coax her out to some private parties thrown by girls I still knew, ones where she could explore urges that did not involve employees. Or maybe not.

At least she had not needed to travel anywhere that demanded her own secretary. Not enough time had passed to spend long hours on a train together, especially when considering the difficulties likely to arise from Mrs. Williams taking after her mother when it came to pinching a few pennies by sharing Pullman berths. Although Mrs. Williams would probably be sensible about that from now on, which was kind of sad when you looked at it from another point of view--

I stopped musing over the possibilities of dark and crowded Pullman berths when I noticed Mrs. Kelly was frowning as she handed over the mail. "There is a problem?"

She picked up one last envelope. "This letter arrived for you, Miss Hughes, labeled personal and confidential."

I took the envelope, wondering what was so disturbing about it. Then I read the return address: Harold S. Moorehead III, and mailed from his townhouse down on the East Side. Harold was Samuel A Moorehead's remaining son. "Uh-oh."

Mrs. Kelly nodded grimly. She had worked for Williams Investments long enough to recognize trouble when she saw it.

"Could someone bring coffee to Mrs. Williams' office? Better make it strong."

She snorted, but it was her acknowledging one, so I did not bother to worry about that. Instead, I gathered up the files I had requested from the clerical pool and hurried back to my desk to dump them. Then I took a deep breath and went into Mrs. Williams' office.

Looking up from the report she was annotating, she asked, "Yes?"

Without comment, I handed her the letter.

After turning the envelope over, examining it, she said, "Personal and confidential," and handed it back to me. So I opened it up and read.

Then I boiled down some frosty and fancy prose into reporting, "He wants a meeting, tomorrow evening."

She let her eyebrows ask her question.

"Sure, I will do this. I will do this, that is, if I can borrow your place and your company. I do not feel like courting trouble by meeting him alone at my apartment in the Village."

"Of course." I tried not to let my relief show at not having to deal with a Moorehead solo for a second time. I must have succeeded since her next question was, "Is this about the late Jack Moorehead?"

"Yes. Yes, this is likely about Jackie."

Given who had asked for the meeting, I was not being yellow by borrowing Fort Williams. Although Samuel Moorehead's estate had probated out as a surprising, "mere" twelve million dollars -- sometimes Wall Street's feeling for dollar amounts was like a marching band's feeling for pianissimo -- that was still plenty of clams to cause lots of problems for Cat. And I already had evidence of what kind of bullies the Mooreheads could be.

Maybe I hoped Moorehead III would refuse my terms, but he did not. I sent out my reply in the morning mail and he sent back a curt acceptance by courier. Five to eight that evening found me once more in Mrs. Williams' living room, pacing back and forth across her oriental carpet to calm my nerves.

"You're jittering. That's rare," she said from where she was seated, one arm resting along the back of the sofa, beautiful in an indigo velvet frock.

"I bet this will be touchy, very touchy. You do not know the half of it."

She rose, walked over to me, took my arm, and leaned in to kiss me. Her lips were cool, gentle, and did not linger, but something flared up behind her eyes even as she let me go.

"You are taking advantage of this situation. Also, there goes my lipstick." I was already heading for the little mirror on the mantelpiece next to the clock.

"Fixing it will give you something to do with yourself," she said from behind me. She was right; minor repairs kept me busy for the minute or so left until the doorbell rang.

Mrs. Williams sat back down on the sofa, her expression distant and neutral, as I answered the door and ushered the younger Mr. Moorehead to an armchair. I did not offer him a drink before I sat down, and he had left his coat out in the foyer rather than let me lay hands upon it. There are limits to what manners can hide.

He spared one glance for Mrs. Williams before he sat, but he talked to me. "My father's will was quite specific, or you would be speaking now with a representative from our lawyers and not with me. What do you want for them?"

"The late Mr. Moorehead's letters to Jackie? Nothing." I waited for what I thought the next question would be.

Instead, the fella glared at me for a few seconds, and then moved that glare over to Mrs. Williams. "Don't think you can hold out for more financial concessions from the Trust. You did enough damage during Father's lifetime. His criticisms of Jack's degeneracy are nothing we heirs need to be worried about if they are made public; I am merely following his final instructions."

Mrs. Williams let her eyebrows rise in mild surprise. "Any conflicts I had with your father ended at his death. This wasn't one of them. Speak to Miss Hughes, not to me."

"My father's letters. I want them." was what he had to say to me.

"After I read them? I burned them."

"Don't take me for a fool. Why else would you be working for Mrs. Williams if not for the letters? You had nothing else to offer that she could use." He gave me the kind of head-to-toe survey laced with contempt that some men like to think will bruise you.

I did not bother to be bruised as I turned to Mrs. Williams and shrugged inquiry. His attack was nothing new. Besides, he had asked me her question, and I wanted to hear her answer.

She said, musingly, "Aside from general competence, alertness, and intelligence, seemingly not of interest to you, there are the qualities of loyalty and discretion we see demonstrated here. As well, I have found that Miss Hughes' presence brings forth interesting indiscretions from men, which we also see demonstrated here. I am sorry to learn Jack Moorehead had difficulties with his private life. He seemed, from my distance, to be a pleasant young gentleman."

He ignored her. "Five thousand," he told me.

"Too bad I burned them. They would be fun to pitch into your face. I bet you can see yourself out."

"If you think I am increasing my offer, you are sadly mistaken."

It was nice to have someone else to take over this time, when I got tired of trying to talk sense to a Moorehead. I told Mrs. Williams, "He spoke to me. I spoke to him. I am not getting through."

"I'm afraid not." She turned to him and said, "Do stop playing the cartoon tycoon. You are in no position, fiscal or otherwise, to imitate the bullying of so-called inferiors your late father enjoyed as a tactic."

"So-called?" This time his look at me held straight up contempt.

"Oh, yes. Pleasant as it might be for those who feel themselves superior to boast of superior breeding, or superior skill, or a superior portion of God's regard, a few of us understand the role of superior luck in our successes. Especially when individuals of inferior quality endowed by luck with superior status will insist upon providing examples."

He had at least enough superior skill to decipher a complicated insult. The next few minutes were no fun. However, even a Moorehead did not dare to go too far with the Empress of Wall Street regarding him with the cool distaste she would show while studying a bad penny stock prospectus. Eventually, with poor grace and worse threats, he ran down. Then he left.

I ended up accompanying Moorehead III to the door, but only to make sure he got into the elevator without lingering. When I went back inside, Helen handed me a brandy. I accepted with gratitude before she steered me to the sofa.

"Thanks," I said. Needing distraction from sharing a sofa with her again, I also said, "I think you have enough skill to succeed without needing much luck."

"Succeed? Perhaps. I like to think I could have built up a plump and profitable little business from scratch. But become the so-called Empress? No. Even Mother started with five million." Pensive, she rubbed the velvet of her skirt between thumb and forefinger.

That sight was no help to me. I tried a different line. "Sorry to have dragged you into my trouble."

"No need. This was interesting. I always wondered why Samuel allowed you to get away with selling the family parure that Jack Moorehead gave you."

"I did not bother to tell Old Man Moorehead I burned his letters to Jackie. They were nasty reading. Obscene in places. If they were typical of what he said to Jackie's face, I think Jackie shot himself in public more for revenge than anything else." I shook my head. "At least Jackie had done some planning before his suicide, making me take those letters along with that horrible set of topazes."

"Somehow none of these details turned up either in the newspapers or in Nathan's report to me on the scandal."

"Good. One more reason to burn the letters."

"I must admit, I am annoyed that Nathan's report introduced you to me as Jack's mistress."

"Anything else would have demanded too many explanations as to why I was Jackie's girl friend and not his girlfriend. Also, since they shared social circles, Jackie may have been feeding Nathan tidbits about Old Man Moorehead. Nathan is loyal to his sources, living or dead."

"Sorry, I meant that I'm annoyed with myself. Pointless envy is unpleasant. Toward Nathan, I feel only gratitude. If he hadn't mentioned that you were using the money from the topazes to put yourself through a first-class secretarial school, I wouldn't have been interested in meeting you. Yours was an intriguing choice."

"Well, before my father died I had wanted to be a school teacher, and twenty-four years old is close to done for a Ziegfeld girl. I thought I could find some rich fellow to work for who was too old to chase me very fast or far." The last sentence may have sounded a little weak toward the end, given the way my words made her focus on me, her gaze hot and intent. Almost too late, I noticed we had been migrating toward each other along the sofa.

Then Helen blinked and stopped moving. I did, too. I said, "I can stifle the whoopee urge with most good friends, but you--" right as she started up with, "Why a schoolgirl crush should keep making me want to maul--" We both broke off and stared at each other.

Do not laugh. Sure, I know it is supposed to be funny when two people who are smart, skilled, and all that stuff are also being dim. But we had truly not realized until we said those words that we had arrived at this point along two different lines of thinking. And when A thinks she is traveling from casual lust toward deep affection, and B thinks she is traveling from crushing like a kid toward adult and honest passion, where do the lines intersect?

Uh-huh. They meet at love, the serious kind, the kind that is not just breath-catching obsession with someone. No, this was the kind of love you do not always notice any more than you always notice the beating of your own heart.

Like I said, we were both smart and skilled, enough so to figure out what we had been missing. No wonder I swallowed, and she went pale.

As usual, I broke the silence. That was my job, after all. "Okay. This time I am the one not sure I wish to talk about this. Should we try, or should I leave?"

"Oh dear. Now I understand what-- But after months, years, of our talking, I'm still not ready for this." Helen sounded as stunned about that last discovery as anything.

"I have to say, given the current temperature in here, we likely would not get much talking done before veering into petting. Or more than petting."

"No. You're right, we probably wouldn't." She was half-smiling, but she was also looking at me through those lashes of hers again. That got me up onto my feet, and the smile switched to full-out amusement as she said, "Good night, dear Cat. Sleep well."

"Sure. Good luck with that." I waited until my hand was on the doorknob to add, "But feel free to make with the sweet dreams, Helen," and it was just as well I had waited, from the expression my words provoked.

It was also just as well that Moorehead III had not lingered in the lobby to take another try at me. I would have punched him right in the kisser, and Helen's life had enough complications involving me without pugilism.

Her life had enough complications that did not involve me, for that matter. I bought a copy of The Business Week at the newsstand outside the St. James. Back in my apartment, I read about how the market had closed sharply down after a week of fluctuations.

Even so, as I drifted off to sleep, I was not wondering how much longer the stock market could hold out.

 

V -- The Fall

It was Halloween, and the party was over, the punch was gone, and the lousy hangovers were beginning. No one on Wall Street had needed a costume this year; after three long days of the stock market crashing, everyone already looked like a clown, a crook, a bum, or a ghost.

As for Mrs. Williams, she looked like the Oracle of Delphi about to fall off her chair. I told her, "You need to quit for the weekend."

"It's Thursday just after lunch. The weekend starts Friday evening. I'll quit then."

"Sure. Like you quit last weekend. Like you slept last weekend, or since." Before she knew where she was at, I had her into her hat, gloves, and coat, headed for the exit. We passed Nathan on the way out, and he just nodded at me and got out of the way before she could find anything to say to him. Mr. Christensen saw us and took an abrupt right turn into the steno pool, trailing wads of tickertape. Mrs. Kelly opened the door to the outside corridor without even a snort.

Instead of issuing more orders or requesting more reports at work, Mrs. Williams had to settle for talking to me in a taxicab, which she started doing as soon as the door slammed shut. "That banker's meeting last Friday was useless. Not all their buy orders did anything to stop the slide of the Market on Monday. Their money is effectively gone."

"Uh-huh."

"Nevertheless, I would have contributed my twenty million to their fund for purchasing stock if they had asked me. Nevertheless. Although they didn't."

"So you saved some moolah."

"Not that I much deserved to. Over the years, I got distracted from basic principles. I let myself play at revenge just so I could enjoy making money without feeling like Maude's daughter. I used revenge to bury the problems with my marr--"

With a glance at the taxi driver, I interrupted her. "You told me most of this already. You would not be telling me again if you were not exhausted, which is why you are going home early to sleep."

"I'm fine," she said. At least she took my hint and slid in closer. "I should be working. There's still work to be done."

"There sure is, but you and the Merry Men have us braced for the next few weeks. Stop feeling bad you saw this coming."

"Guilt is bourgeois."

"You are bourgeois. Rich as a Rockefeller, but--"

"Not guilt, so much as annoyance, is what I feel," she told my shoulder in a low voice.

"Annoyance. Sure."

"Yes, annoyance. You were young during the last slump. They respect no boundaries. I don't like contributing to breaking people I didn't mean to break, bystanders busy with other things that need doing." Her voice was very low now, but her irony was back. "If I am truly the Empress, if I get to choose, then I want tournaments, not wars. This latest mess makes me feel like taking revenge against someone new. Maybe even against myself." Then she stopped talking, likely to make with the pensive brooding again.

Instead, she dozed off against the shoulder she had been addressing. If I had not also been so tired, I might have been unsettled by her words or self-conscious about being slept on in a taxi. As it was, I looked out the windows as we drove, absent-mindedly bracing her against the bumps with a casual arm across her shoulder, blearily wondering what was going to happen next.

What happened next was sleep. At least, that was what happened after I got her into the elevator at the St. James and up to her apartment. During the trip, as Mrs. Williams leant drowsily against me, I could not help but ask Bill, "Did you own any stock?"

"If I had, I wouldn't have after hearing what Mrs. Williams had to say. Sooner play the numbers. Not that I have much money for that, either, what with three offspring to educate." His smile was small, brief, and sardonic. I blinked at the realization that I had just seen an off-duty expression on him but was too tired to make head or tails of it. Instead, I concentrated on getting Mrs. Williams into her apartment and into her bed.

I meant to go home myself, I really did. But I had some notion that she would be trying to go to work on Friday morning and that she should be stopped. I had just enough brains left to don the pajamas I had once seen her wear -- too short and too baggy on me, not that I cared right then -- before taking the sofa. After that, I was out like a light for a good, long time. I guess I had worked some overtime, too.

She woke me, gently, with the words I most wanted to hear from those lush lips right then. "Breakfast with your coffee?"

"Lots of both." I got up and headed stiffly toward the bathroom, a smart move since she was fresh-scrubbed, which was a look I could not contemplate on her for long without trouble. Besides, my breath was pretty bad.

"We're not working today," she called after me. "Take your time."

"Hooray," I called back. I shut the door. Somehow, I was not surprised to find an extra toothbrush waiting for me.

By the time I felt ready to face both her and the world while dressed in a borrowed terrycloth robe, room service had come and gone. Mrs. Williams was sitting at the usual rosewood table, dressed in the usual blue silk dressing gown, eating the usual eggs. I sat down and studied this sight. There were, I realized, a dozen red roses parked in a crystal vase, brightening the table. Red roses, as I had once mentioned to her, were a favorite of mine.

Mrs. Williams -- Helen -- stopped eating, looked over at the roses, and looked at me. Then she smiled, the emotions in her eyes clear to read. My mouth, fresh from a steamy shower, went dry. At last, she was ready to talk. And, at last, I was ready to listen.

"You're not allowed to take the job I'd truly like to offer you," she said.

Yeah, okay. We were both to that point. "I'm already doing most of the work for the job you would like to offer me."

"Without the life-long contract. With none of the protections and benefits, such as they are. I wish I could offer you two million in cash instead, but I know what your reaction to that would be."

"At least I have learned enough about your personal history not to slap you once I hear that particular dollar sum. But, no. Thank you."

She nodded and then picked up a spoon before attacking her half a grapefruit. As for me, I tried toast.

Fifteen minutes of brisk try-outs was enough to persuade me that toast was a truly great performer, as were eggs, oatmeal, fruit, and coffee. "Are we giving up on prudence, here?" I asked her afterward.

"Is 'giving up' what it's called?"

"No, I think it is called fornication with maybe dramatic and illegal perversion thrown in. Are you, or are you not, going to seduce your secretary?"

"I'm not sure." Her expression was grave but her eyes were amused. "Have you had enough breakfast already?"

"Sure." I studied her, and then used the limelight smile I save for hot numbers I really like. "Do you feel like learning some new business?"

That made her blink. Helen recovered with a smile of her own. "The business of America, or so we are informed, is business."

I knew I had a beginner on my hands. It had become clear to me that Mr. Williams, whatever his merits might have been, was no Rudolf Valentino. So I lured Helen back to that friendly and familiar sofa, meaning to start with nothing more challenging than kisses. Good luck with that; she had not forgotten any of what I had already taught her.

Ten minutes later, I was sitting back against pillows and the arm of that sofa, caught somewhere between laughter and lust. As we had necked, Helen had slowly shifted from sitting by me to straddling my legs, the chemise working up wonderfully around her waist. Now both of her hands cradled my face again as she kissed me with slow heat, delicately plundering my lips and mouth with her tongue. Maybe sensing not all my shaking was due to what she was doing, she pulled back a little to study me. I was glad to see her eyes looked kind of sleepy, filled with want. I was also glad to see how her lush and lovely breasts shifted beneath silk as she breathed hard from all the kissing.

When Helen spoke, her voice was husky and amused. "What?"

"I thought you would be shy."

"I am shy." She leaned down to where she had unbuttoned the pajama tops as she kissed me, and then used her tongue to trace a warm, wet line down from my collarbone to the tip of my breast. There, she hesitated.

"Okay, maybe a little shy," I said, and hinted at where she wanted to go with a hand laced into her curls. The hair surrounding my fingers was as silken soft as the chemise she wore; I had to fight an urge to tug her back up to my lips and enjoy her mouth some more, to comb my fingers through the chestnut cascade of locks she usually wore up. I was glad that I had resisted when, tentatively at first and then with more confidence, Helen kissed my breast, finally exploring the nipple with her tongue. The touch of wet heat made my thighs clench together.

"You could try sucking," I managed to get out.

So she tried sucking, her hands clamped on my shoulders, her hips shifting restlessly against me as she worked. I slid both of my own hands down to guide her hips to where I could work a leg between her thighs, putting pressure where she needed it to teach her the next step of this dance.

Helen had to stop sucking my breast when she leaned back, her look shading toward feral as she started to ride me at my prompting. I could feel the tightness of my abandoned nipple, the coolness of air on the moisture she had left behind. Reminded of a missed opportunity, I sucked my own fingers for a moment -- that made her eyes widen -- and used them to caress the tips of her breasts into hardness through the thin fabric of her chemise, each in turn.

I heard the small moan when I let them go, a noise that sent a flare of heat from my stomach to my groin. Slowly, I slid the fingers of both hands down, pausing to caress now and then, enjoying the scenic journey to where we were intertwined. I could tell from the scent that she was wet, ready to be touched.

"Lean back a little, okay?" I asked.

Her huffing noise of assent implied this had better be okay, but I bet my smile was confident. Helen shifted enough that I could trail a well-trimmed fingernail along the front of her mound -- I wanted to see the curls I could feel through the cloth of her scanties, but later for that -- and then work that finger between us. I searched a little before finding what I was looking for through thin fabric. Pressing in, I rubbed.

"Oh. Good Lord," she said, managing to make those words sound filthier than a comic's language when he tripped in the wings after coming off. When I used my free hand to start working her chemise up over her head, Helen stopped talking. But she had stopped to help me, which was nifty.

Helen was so beautiful. Not perfect; only saps want perfect. Each mole and tiny scar, the slight difference in size between her breasts, the fugitive, fine hairs scattered down her stomach just made me want to launch a thousand ships in happy tribute to the woman I wanted. Not that I could have managed launching even a rowboat onto the pond in Central Park right now, but the urgency with which she was squirming against both my leg and my touch made it clear she was okay with what I could do.

Her breathing was rough and she was perspiring. I used my free fingers to trace and then taste the saltiness of her skin, poor substitute for what I hoped to be tasting really soon. At the sight, her gray eyes went wide again and then were veiled by her lashes. The scanties fabric beneath my finger was a little wet now, all the better for what we were doing. I was so taken up with everything about her, her reactions, her beauty, that I did not care that my fingers ached with effort and my leg was falling asleep. So I startled when Helen just about purred, "More."

Grinning, I stroked her a little harder. "Sure. Lots more."

I guess she believed me because she took a deep breath, gritted her teeth, and pushed down against me hard as she peaked. Although I had watched variations on this sight hundreds of times, I watched her as if I had never seen this before. Maybe I never had.

We slipped down to rest tangled together for a while, but that did not last as long as I expected. After a few slow kisses, Helen said, in a voice that made clear who was the Empress in this room, "Show me how to do that."

I lifted my head almost blindly and managed to get out, "Bed." Then she was up and had me by the hand, tugging me toward her bedroom, dressed only in scanties still testifying to her passion. Sometimes, even when the clouds are rolling in, life is just good.

If I had cooled off a little, which I had not, the look on her face when I stripped down in her bedroom for the first time would have heated me back up again. I let Helen take a minute to study me before I asked her, "You want to know how to do that?"

"Oh, yes."

"Fine. Start by petting whatever is interesting. Right now, almost anything feels good." I looked at Helen, also naked at last, and swallowed before I said, "Believe me on this."

"I do." As she kissed me, her fingers traced a slow, fascinated path down my spine.

By the time she had me down in her Egyptian cotton sheets, touching each bit of me like I was saving up all the missing Dow Jones points an inch beneath my skin, I was so far gone that I could not even tell her what to do. I had to seize her hands and guide them to where I wanted them. Then she took over, repeating my lesson, using my sighs and sounds to revise her efforts for effectiveness. Helen watched as I came apart and then swooped to catch one last kiss and taste my pleasure, both predatory and generous to the end.

Afterward, she stroked my face with her fingertips as I caught my breath. "That was… certainly something," she said at last.

"Just getting started."

She sat up and shook her head, not disagreeing but amused. "I can't imagine what comes next."

You would think she would have known better than to say that. Mrs. Williams does not hire people who do not like a challenge. I shifted experienced eyes to assess her -- in good shape and more relaxed than she understood yet -- before rolling over to wrap her into my embrace.

"Permit me to demonstrate, here," I said over her laughter, before I slid down and coaxed her legs apart. There was still something of laughter in her surprised gasp when my tongue found her for the first time, which I liked, a lot. Helen liked what I proceeded to teach her a lot, too.

From a strictly practical viewpoint, all the exercise on Friday did make us sleep well at night. That was good because I knew Helen would promptly give way to Mrs. Williams on Saturday morning, and we would be working through the weekend.

I did not really mind. All our Friday exertions showed she was eager to continue the day's activities as a serious hobby, not just as a single trial. So I figured that one thing would lead to another. Life and my special social circles would lead Mrs. Williams to other activities that could fill any time freed from the Countess of Monte Cristo role, now that her show of revenge had closed on Wall Street. All this was worth the risk of mixing business and pleasure, especially now that I knew how matters really stood between us.

"Are you sure you won't take that two million?" Mrs. Williams asked me over breakfast the next morning.

I paused to survey her and then decided I remained in enough charity from her remembering to send my clothes out to be laundered the previous day not to answer her question as it deserved. "You may give me presents. Small presents. Tennis-racket-sized presents, for example. Travel is fine, too, if you were going someplace anyhow. Other than that, let us wait and see." With a frown, I added, "Also, I am not your guardian angel, or your muse, or your Tiny Tim, or whatever. If you are changing some of your ways, that was your decision. I only get paid to fix you, not to smuggle you past the Pearly Gates."

Mrs. Williams looked amused. "Very well." After dropping a single lump of sugar into her coffee, she stirred it with the predictable silver spoon. Her fingers were deft, her chestnut hair was lovely in the morning sunshine, and her expression was again serene. From her attitude, you would not know she had just considered, and then embraced, deviance. As for me, I did not yearn to touch the merchandise any more. Instead, I knew I would touch the merchandise as soon as inventory time rolled back around.

This was the time for business. "What about you?" I asked. "I seem to remember you saying something about taking revenge on yourself."

"I'm afraid I may have to. I may have to try, at least." Briefly, she grimaced before adding, "It may be my turn to try to fix some matters."

Just as well I had my own cup of coffee to hide behind. I felt as if a tigress had announced she was about to build a beaver dam.

"I'll need to make some phone calls over the next few days, write additional checks." She tapped a thoughtful fingernail against the tabletop. "Perhaps Eleanor and Franklin would like to have lunch again."

On the other hand, with this particular tigress planning construction, any saplings around the stream should be very, very scared.

"Are you all right, Catherine? You seem preoccupied."

I turned my best moony and wistful gaze in her direction, and then grinned when she looked a little annoyed. "No. Only changing gears."

The smile came and went. "Good. Then let's get back to work. Instead of the same old labor, I feel like giving birth to something new." Her next smile at me was a little too warm for the office, but I did not feel like complaining. "Something else new."

My grin softened into a smile. This was obviously one of those mornings when the Empress would be a pleasure to obey.

**Author's Note:**

> First published by the fine folks at Torquere Press before all rights reverted to me. Many thanks to their editors and to my best beloved alpha reader, Sphinxvictorian.


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